Dowbrigade

Just when we were down to our last hope – that the
Celtics would draft that kid named "Noah" – it finally stopped raining.
So what to do, on one of our last days of relative freedom before the
beginning of Summer Semester and daily teaching all the way through Christmas
Break, to enjoy the break in the weather.

Let’s go to Arnold
Arboretum to see the lilacs! Who
knew the Dowbrigade was a closet horticulturist?

The Arnold
Arboretum, in Jamaica Plain on the south
side of Boston, is the oldest arboretum, or Botanical Gardens, in the
United States.  The land belongs to the city, and it is open to
the public, although it is run by Harvard under a long-term lease. Originally
stocked by New England sea captains and Harvard Professors bringing back
exotic seeds and saplings from voyages around the world, it now specializes
in North American and Asian flora. Besides maples, crabapples,
rhododendrons, and conifers, they have a major collection of lilacs.
over 422 plants.

Every May, the Dowbrigade grows nostalgic when the perfume
of lilacs fills the air. We grew up in upstate New York, near Rochester’s
Highland Park, which contests with the Royal
Botanical Gardens in Burlington,
Ontario (Canada) for the title of "World’s Largest Lilac Collection".
Each claims about 1200 plants.

In Rochester, almost every house has a few bushes. We
remember, when we were young, picking multi-colored bouquets of full-bloom
lilacs every May for our grade school teacher.  Sucking up for a
passing grade, no doubt. The lilac’s don’t last long – in two weeks they
go from thin slivers of color to bare browning nubs. In this they are
sort of America’s cherry blossoms.

And the smell is divine.

If any of our hypothetical readers are within driving distance of JP, we strongly advise you to check it out. Many students from other parts of the country spend years in Boston and never find this giant gem hiding out in plain sight.

Despite being mostly colorblind, we put together a slide
show of some pictures we shot today.  Anyone not bored to death
by pictures of flowers can view them HERE

Boston scientists released a provocative report yesterday
that challenges the timeline of human evolution and suggests that human
ancestors bred with chimpanzee ancestors long after they had initially
separated into two species.

The researchers, working at the Cambridge-based Broad Institute of Harvard
and MIT, used a wealth of newly available genetic data to estimate the
time when the first human ancestors split from the chimpanzees. The team
arrived at an answer that is at least 1 million years later than paleontologists
had believed, based on fossils of early, humanlike creatures.

The lead scientist said that this jarring conflict with
the fossil record, combined with a number of other strange genetic patterns
the team uncovered, led him to a startling explanation: that human ancestors
evolved apart from the chimpanzees for hundreds of thousands of years,
and then started breeding with them again before a final break.

”Something very unusual happened," said David Reich, one of the
report’s authors and a geneticist at the Broad and Harvard Medical School.

Not so unusual – as any experienced relationship counselor will testify,
there is often a heartfelt attempt at reconcilliation before the final
break occurs – although it doesn’t usually last a couple of hundred thousand
years!

This research is sure to roil the already murky waters
surrounding the evolution debate. We can hear the religious right now
– "Heresy! Beastiality! Abomination!" At the same time, it may help explain
our attraction to hairy women….

from the
Boston Globe